The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 22

Novi Grad, Sokovia

Spring 2015

No matter the anxious thrum of anxiety in her chest and the simmering anger that lingered in the back of her mind, Nadine was almost bewildered to realize that she was finding the assault on Strucker's fortress exhilarating...even—and she was on the verge of resenting herself for it—fun.

For so much of her professional life, at least when it came to her second life as the Ghost, she rarely got to really take advantage of her combat skills; it was very rare that she encountered a situation where she had any true need of them. Her round with the Captain in Prague a few days before had been the first real fight she'd had in years. She'd never been involved in an engagement like this; though it prepared her for it to some extent, adaptable as Nadine and her abilities were, her training wasn't meant for pitched battles. It was her skills as a sharpshooter that she used most often, given that her reputation generally relied on her proficiency as a long distance assassin over the more challenging close-quarter and intimate approach that many others favoured; it was far easier to take out another assassin from a distance, after all, and her ego was not wrapped up in the challenge of her hits, only the success of her missions.

She had missed fighting like this. The physicality of it, the fast pace, the adrenaline. It was a fine balance of calculation, instinct and trust in her own body's abilities that, for the most part, she had enjoyed even back in the Red Room. But in the years since she'd taken up the mantle of The Ghost, she'd had only a handful of situations arise where she had to resort to close-contact fighting of any kind, and even then, she was rarely given a good fight.

Well, she was certainly getting one today; the sheer numbers that they were up against made it challenging, even if Strucker's soldiers themselves were practically substandard, especially when compared to her and the Avengers. It felt good, simply letting herself go, letting the thrill of the fight and her sharp instincts take over.

Her long-ingrained discipline and regular training had kept her skills honed, and it was more than enough to help her keep up with the Avengers. More than enough that, between her and Natasha, the perimeter guardhouse never stood a chance, the two of them breezing through the building with ease and driving out with a stolen jeep with far less effort than it should have taken. More than enough that any of Strucker's soldiers she faced had no hope against her. More than enough to take on a tank and gun embankment of her own, the competitive side of her leftover from the driving environment of the Red Room not willing to be outdone by the Avengers.

Mostly Nadine just listened to the banter the Avengers team threw around at each other, reserving her focus for the fight. But every now and then she couldn't help but get drawn into the (mostly) good-natured bickering that the team aimed at each other. The odd quip was even thrown toward her, especially when she took advantage of the gun embankment she'd cleared and turned the high powered weapon toward another a couple hundred yards away, clearing a path for the Captain and Natasha to slip through the HYDRA lines.

As nice as it felt to be fighting, it felt—bizarrely enough—nicer still to be fighting as part of a team. She'd always worked alone, and she'd always been okay with that. Not that she'd had much of a choice, really. She certainly hadn't expected to be anything more than an outsider tagging along with the team.

But strangely enough, as the Avengers pushed closer and closer to the base, Nadine nearly felt like she was a part of their team. It was surprisingly easy to fight alongside them, Nadine instinctively falling into place among them as though she'd fought with them before. She'd never experienced anything like it, save when she and Natasha had teamed up all those years before.